-=Frost 1: Power=- -=By: Zenith Nadir=-
Frost is a very unique game by Zenith in this game Zenith shows off his 1st full game by himself in three years. Zenith Graphical style is unique and original, The things he draws in this game are live like (like the cartoon drawings on TV) and are very excellent.
The story is well written I spell checked it and it said "No errors" so it shows he can write a well written story.
Music was done by MadTom which Madtom shows he can write music well.
the programming is not a main strength in this game but in areas where it is, it's done great.
The little art boards that r in this game are very wonderful and colorful and show what Nadir was expressing at the time he made the boards.
Nadir should keep this great work up for frost 2, KEEP IT UP NADIR!
It sure is. The humour is good, the graphics are great, the idea (humanized animals) is an old, but good one, the story was rather good. All in all, another good game from our very own Zenith Nadir.
Will their be a part 2? Time will tell.
Frost Part One - Power
Is a ZZT game with a plot, good graphics, and a fun littil swordy slashin stuff. I liked the game until I got to the zombies.....I dont like it when I cant kill an enemy!!! (But they all get killed in the end so...YAY!) I dont care if a game is not original or if it is, just give me a game and I'll play it! One tiny wittil thing, the game is to short. I mean, once I finnal got that hippo out of the way, (or whatever he named it), I thought "Yay! Now I get to go on and play through a mountian region! JOY!" I could not wait for the graphics of a mountian! I was most ready for another adventure....then it ended....=( Sad. Im still giving it a five because I THINK THIS GAME IS GOOD ENOUGH TO BE IN THE FEATURED GAME SECTION! PUT IT THERE NOW!!!
After a small preview on his LJ. Zenith Nadir releases my favorite game ever! Frost 1 Power is a graphical Masterpiece and Zenith's best game ever. The graphics are incredible the swamp graphics start eerily spooky and then with the nice blending totally give a wet swamp feeling. Zenith's trademark skylines peek in. And in the two boards (attack/reload & Death cab for rosie)The skyline is extremely "G00B". Frost has good details everywhere for example the fakes in the linking board to the swamp right before the swamp board the rocks and plants everywhere. Of course ever since Blue moons moon scenes and Dragon Woods Zenith's graphics were known. The music is well done by Master Composer MadTom. The sword engine was good and the enemies slight AI was good enough. The story while not being completely original was good enough and as MadTom said the slight interjections (HOORAY!, SHIFT YO ASS) prevented the story from being to serious but didnt make it Chickenwired.
Programming 5/10 Uh.. yeah
Graphics 11/10 Beyond anything i've seen in ZZT so far.
M00SICK 10/10 Hi MadTom!
Plot 8/10 Good
Overall: 10/10 The programming could have more tricks like some in Chickenwire v1.8 (The smiley's diagonal blinkwall trick)and the plot could have more twists but overall a must play
I EAGERLY AWAIT FROST 2 (& 3?)!
-ZZDevelin
Sigh, Nadir's making me review this NOW. Very well, by now you've all played it. You've all seen the reviews, you know everything about it :(. The only reason you wouldn't have played it is because of the FEAR OF TEH FURRY ANIMALS. Because everybody already mentioned the incredible graphics, and WEEFUN writing, I guess I have to be the person to convince the few who haven't played Frost yet play it because of the FEAR OF TEH FURRY ANIMALS. Anthropomorhpic is big of a word :(. Have no fear, for all your fears of EROTIC FURRY ACTION all false. Hell, there's a disclaimer in the beginning about how there is none. Nadir says there that it's more Ozy and Millie, which is the best webcomic ever. So play it already. Oh wait, there is one just plain nasty part I won't give it away, but it involves TAMPONS :(((. -.5 for making me cry :(
Frost is one of those ZZT games that makes me happy when I play it. NOT beacause of the sexy fox mind you! Anyway...this game is very record breaking for me beacause it's the first Sword-engine game that I liked. Though it would have been cool if you could use the sword from the begining of the game and could parry and thrust and crap. The dialouge was great and the charactors were good. The only problem was that in a vew scenes it moved too fast (at the bottom of the screen). The music was amazing. Though I was dissapointed by the fact that there were only two tracks, quality over quantity I guess. Overall, though a little short, and with a few very minor flaws, this game is close enogh to perfection and deserves a 5.
The End
Overview:
Anthropomorphic animal characters.
Cartoonish, lively graphics.
Occasional ALL CAPS interjections.
Yep, Frost 1 is about as Zenith Nadir-y as you can get. Is this a bad thing? Well, that's a matter of taste, I suppose, but there's no way Nadir's technical skill can be faulted here, nor his sense of timing. This is a fun game.
Plot:
The plotline is fairly standard RPG stuff; we get an ominous hint in the opening that Something Bigger is happening, and then the game jumps to the main character, a teenager who makes a rather important discovery about herself, like all teenage RPG heroes. No, she isn't heir to the throne or anything like that, nor do her parents suddenly get killed off, but the device that's used here is still pretty ageworn.
The game continues along a fairly predicatable track, with some pretty common stock scenes and a "find a pet's owner" quest. Nothing immensely original, but it could be worse; it could be incomprehensible (see most trippy games).
Writing:
But even the most tired plot can be made to shine with solid writing, and, thankfully, Zenith pulls through here. The characters are satisfactory, and the pacing is excellent. Clunky exposition is kept to a minimum - although, as the first game is meant to set up the world, there is definitely some there - and the dialogue isn't overlong.
I, personally, find the authorial interjections annoying. At times, Zenith clearly puts his own catchphrases and bits of random silliness in the mouths of the characters. Even worse, it occasionally... OCCASIONALLY got a laugh from me, so I couldn't quite ignore it, either. That's a nasty thing to do, throw inanities around and then surprise me with humor. For shame.
Of course, I consider the amount of cursing excessive. What else is new?
Gameplay:
The gameplay sections of Frost 1 are solid. There's a swordplay Simon Says sequence and a bunch of forest and swamp screens with monsters to fight. This isn't anything new, but it's done very smoothly and competently. The monsters require a bit of work to beat sometimes - and there's one really great moment of blind panic. It's telegraphed, but that somehow makes it better.
The game does take a bit of time to get going, but once it does, it does. I prefer to think of the pacing as "excellently done and unhurried," as opposed to "long setup, no payoff yet."
Music:
It's MadTom. It's good, what there is of it.
Graphics:
So, you can have Suikoden Fantasy, where the graphics are the best thing in the game, but are basically just look pretty, or you can have Frost 1, where the graphics are the best thing in the game, and seem to define its personality and give it a great sense of fun.
Programming:
I didn't run into any bugs, everything was neatly executed, and the masses of enemies worked well.
Conclusion:
A fun, if short, game. Let's see more of these.
(And before you ask, I'd intended to review this before I saw his LJ post begging for it. Warning, spoilers galore.)
Zenith's first full ZZT game in three years is a full-blown triumph, a graphical masterpiece with original characters, an intriguing storyline, a cohesive, well-developed and depicted setting ... and the gameplay isn't half bad, either.
Frost 1: Power is a cinema game based on characters that Zenith has apparently been brooding on for a long time, perhaps years. Some of you might recognise, for example, the character Henna in prototype form from his art compilation UltraWack, which was released way, way back when your grandfather was learning about STK, and, much more recently, from the infamous KrackeNadir art journal.
The graphics are the game's main strength, which is not really surprising for a self-confessed cinema game, and, at the risk of sounding like I'm exaggerating (I'm not), I've never actually seen anything quite like it, particularly the art boards. Light and shadow are used very effectively, and the attention to detail is pretty astonishing. Zenith's trademark skylines, such as the purple-grey sky of the first 'teaser' board of the game involving a character named Set, are used to full effect, including consistency with descriptions of weather ... he said it was overcast, and he meant it!
The gameplay, when you finally reach it after the marathon introduction, is simple; Penny Shaïwell, upon being exiled from her homeland of Gian, is on her way to Alsace, walking through forest and swampland, and using the sword given to her by her mother to KILL things in the process. She faces such feared opponents as polliwogs and bloodflies, and, of course, the everpresent zombie muttering such intimidating threats as "rrrr brains", and the task of finding the mysterious swamp witch Henna, whose unfortunately wounded pet is blocking the bridge to Alsace. All very simple, but rather nice. In fact, the only thing that really turned me off about the gameplay was the duplicator reproducing the enemies, though that's admittedly long been a pet peeve of mine.
In spite of the potentially morose atmosphere of latter parts of the game, Zenith keeps a reasonably light perspective with occasional interjections such as "stumpy is speshul :(", swearwords, and "say goodbye to gian 4eva". Which is just as well, otherwise the game might have collapsed under its own (considerable) weight. The dialogue generally flows freely and realistically; there's no pretentious, droning, Final Fantasy-type crap here.
The music, comprised of a mere two pieces, is my own, so I'd best ignore that ... and yes, Zenith, I saw my goddamned <:) smiley on the squid board. I CONSIDERED PINGING YOU A POINT JUST FOR THAT I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW, SQUIRREL BOY
All in all, Frost 1: Power is a tour-de-force of, in my mind, unparalleled ZZT artwork set to a well-thought-out storyline, with a level of gameplay acceptable to a cinema game, interesting characters, and pretty damn good writing. Even if it was made by a guy who, according to Flaming O, looks like John Denver.
Download it and play it now, since I've pretty much spoiled the whole damned thing for you! Definitely a new entry on my favourites list. I hope to see more of it very soon!
